Evaluation of Phytochemical Composition and Antibacterial Property of Gynura procumbens Extract

Gynura procumbens is one of the important medicinal plants in Thailand and Southeast Asia. It is usually used as a traditional medicine for the treatment of inflammation, herpes simplex virus, rashes, fever, rheumatism, kidney disease, migraines, constipation, diabetes mellitus, cancer and hypertension. The present study was to screen phytochemical compositions of ethanol extract of Gynura procumbens leaves such as chlorophylls, carotenoids, alkaloids, saponins, anthraquinone glycosides, volatile oils as standard methods and to evaluate the antibacterial activity by using agar well diffusion method. Phytochemical analysis revealed the contents of chlorophyll-a, b and carotenoids in ethanolic Gynura extract were 365.20±0.049, 132.40±0.029 and 53.20±0.034 μg g-1 dry weight, respectively. Moreover, the ethanolic Gynura extract showed the presence of alkaloids and volatile oils, whereas saponins and anthraquinone glycosides were absent. According to determination the antibacterial activity was found that Gynura procumbens showed as negative effects in all bacteria’s tested. These results suggest that Gynura extract is a good natural source of bioactive compounds and that they may have beneficial health effects for consumption which may use as preliminary information and could be further studied for uses in food industry, health product, pharmaceutical and medicinal applications.